


Heart-Shaped Box

by nagi_schwarz



Series: The Oppenheimer Effect [53]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Crossover, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-18 03:25:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7297570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Any, Any, box full of childhood memories."</p><p>Uncle Jack brings a box of old junk to JD, and Tyler isn't nearly as stealthy as he thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart-Shaped Box

Tyler was a mixed up jumble of emotions. He’d turned eighteen on Monday, and all of the guys had taken it to eleven to make it special. JD and Cam had brought him breakfast in bed. Evan had put a little birthday cupcake, complete with candle and a single match, in a packed lunch for him. John had driven Tyler to school on the back of his super awesome motorcycle. Rodney had made him a small illegal firework. Evan had made an awesome meal, and the birthday cake was amazing. Tyler had never had a birthday so good.  
  
They’d promised him a kickass party for the weekend, complete with a movie, dinner out, Tina and Sasha along for the fun, and spending an embarrassing amount of money at the local skating rink/arcade. It was the time of his life.  
  
But something else was going on, something no one would talk to him about. He knew everyone else in the house was in on whatever classified business happened at Rodney’s work, because John and Evan went to volunteer there sometimes, and JD was old friends with Sam and Daniel, who were sorta kinda Rodney’s bosses, and Cam always understood the loaded _you know_ and _that one time with that one thing_ that the others tossed back and forth, whole stories behind fragments of sentences.  
  
Tyler knew that whatever was going on at the Mountain had something to go with whatever a Stargate was and him having some kind of funky gene, but no matter how many times he asked, all he got was that it was classified. If it was so classified, why did everyone keep talking about it in front of him? And who was the crazy woman at the grocery store who'd grabbed JD’s face and said he looked like someone named Charlie?  
  
Add to that his bio parents showing up at parent-teacher conferences and almost killing Rodney and Fiona, and Tyler was officially having the worst and best week of his life, all rolled into one. He’d had to take a lot of breaks to do some deep breathing or ride his longboard to the park and back so he didn’t freak out.  
  
His life was weird and crazy. So he shouldn’t have been surprised when the doorbell rang and it was JD’s Uncle Jack. He wasn’t wearing his fancy general uniform, though, just khakis, a t-shirt, and a leather jacket. And he was carrying a giant cardboard box.  
  
“Hey, uh, Tyler. Is...JD...home?”  
  
“Last I checked, yeah. C’mon in.” Tyler stepped back and let Uncle Jack into the house.  
  
The box was full of - junk. An old dusty teddy bear. Clothes. A little baseball bat, glove, and baseball. A bright yellow yoyo. Pictures. Probably some of JD’s old stuff from when he was a kid. Tyler led Uncle Jack down the hall to JD’s room. Belatedly, he realized JD might not be in there or, worse, that JD might be in there with Cam or Evan or both.  
  
Tyler scampered ahead and knocked on the door.  
  
“Yes?” Just JD, no awkward giggling from Evan and Cam.  
  
Tyler relaxed. “Hey, your Uncle Jack’s here to see you.”  
  
JD yanked open the door, eyes wide. “Hey, Jack! What brings you by?”  
  
Uncle Jack hefted the box. “Let’s talk.”  
  
JD nodded, but then his gaze fell on the baseball glove, and he froze. It took him a moment to recover. “I got this, Tyler. Thanks.” He stepped back, and Uncle Jack went into his room, and JD closed the door firmly behind him.  
  
Tyler did what any self-respecting kid did who’d seen a movie. He ran to the kitchen, scooped a glass out of the dishwasher, and tip-toed back to JD’s room to press it against the door and eavesdrop shamelessly.  
  
“ - Done with the pleasantries?” JD asked.  
  
He sounded - rude. Which was bizarre. JD could be sarcastic and occasionally what Principal Connors called insubordinate, but never outright rude. Especially not to an older adult.  
  
“Look, coming here wasn’t my choice,” Jack said.  
  
“Daniel make you do it?”  
  
“Maybe.”  
  
“Why did you bring that here?”

“Sara brought it to me. Funny story. She said she went by Charlie’s grave and saw a kid there - a kid accompanied by four older men, including one in a wheelchair. Kid’s been leaving a baseball on Charlie’s grave on the regular. Kid said he was on Charlie’s old baseball team.” Uncle Jack’s sarcasm sounded exactly like JD’s, if deeper. How much time had JD spent around Uncle Jack, growing up, that they sounded so similar?

“You’re not the only person in the world who misses Charlie.”

“I know. Sara said she ran into said kid at the grocery store - again, accompanied by some older men. She said you reminded her of me, just for a second, and when she looked closely at you, she thought you might be -”

“That thing from the crystal that looked like Charlie for hot second at the end of a terrible day.”

Tyler rocked back on his heels, startled. That made no sense. That was crazy talk. He leaned in to listen some more.

“ - And she said she needed closure, that closure meant giving up a lot of Charlie’s things. Finally cleaning out his old room. I figured you might want some of it. Or to see it one last time, at any rate.” Uncle Jack’s tone was subdued.

There was a pause, and then JD said, “This was his first baseball glove. He wore it all the time. We’d have to wait till he was asleep to -” He cut himself off, voice choked.

“Like I said, look through it. Keep what you want. Donate the rest.”

“You probably picked everything I would’ve.”

“No. Not anymore. Your new boy’s probably too old and too big for most of this stuff, huh?”

“The clothes, obviously. But who knows about the rest. Hipster kids these days like their stuff retro. I’ll see if he’s interested in anything I’m not. Hey, look. His stuffed penguin.”

“How’s it going? With the new kid.”

“He’s a good kid.”

“You keeping him safe?”

“I taught him gun safety.”

“Yeah?”

“Practiced on Rodney first.”

“I thought I saw that guy go through the gate with a nine-mil strapped to his thigh, just like a soldier. I wondered what he was thinking. He’s certainly no Sam, and not even a Daniel.”

There. They were probably talking about the Stargate. What was it? Where did it lead?

“Rodney’s a good guy at heart.”

“And that’s how I know you and I aren’t the same.” There was a pause. “Anyway, I gotta go. Get back to the Mountain. Make sure they haven’t broken anything. Good luck, kid.”

“Thanks, old man.”

“Not so much with the old.”

Tyler scrambled away from the door and into the kitchen. When Uncle Jack and JD passed by, Tyler was innocently filling the glass with water. He waved at Uncle Jack.

After the front door closed, JD came back into the kitchen.

He leaned in the doorway, crossed his arms over his chest. “So, true fact - you’re not as stealthy as you think you are.”

Tyler blinked over the rim of his glass and took a long drink of water.

“But you’re eighteen now, and you have some big choices ahead of you,” JD said. “Till then, use your manners. Cam and Evan taught you better than that.”

Tyler felt awful immediately, like when Fiona said she was disappointed in him, but JD turned away and headed back to his room before Tyler could respond. JD didn’t come out of his room till dinner. After dinner, when Tyler took the trash out to the garbage can on the driveway, he saw beside it a cardboard box full of children’s clothes, including a tiny Mets jersey.

When he peeked into JD’s room, he saw on the dresser a child’s baseball glove and a ball, and a picture of a blond boy who might have been JD when he was a kid, but Tyler knew was someone else.

Someone named Charlie.


End file.
